Not knowing is not same as not having the guts to put a zero into a bit field when you don’t know if it’s a one or a zero. It’s having the guts to say you don’t know. An atheist is somebody who argues that the value must be a zero. Now personally, I don’t know whether the true value is a 0 or 1. I believe it’s a 1, but can’t prove it to my own satisfaction. So therefore I say I don’t know, but I believe it’s a 1 and live accordingly.

Why does this matter? Because as Professor Lennox argues, organized atheisms (for example Communism) know it’s a zero. I claim they know no such thing. What a Communist knows about economics, history or humanity is pitifully small. What they know about God is probably least of all. Of course that doesn’t keep them from pretending they know so much they can assume to teach kids the “truth”. See subsequent post about Ayers. They might have an opinion about the nonexistence of God, but they don’t have any knowledge of the matter.

By the same token, Osama Bin Laden is so sure of his 1 that he knows exactly what God wants. He wants people to fly themselves into the World Trade Center. He believes they will get 72 Virgins — not 71 or 73 but 72 — as a reward. I claim he can’t know any such thing. He can believe it. There may be indications of his belief, but I don’t think he has a right to kill in the name of his certitude.